Monthly Archives: February 2014

All winter we’ve worn our summer dresses, our sunblock, and our shades. All winter we’ve quietly wondered to ourselves if this is the beginning of the end. If global climate change had decided to make her fist move. If summertime in the winter is what all those scientists were talking about. Los Angeles winters of 85 degrees. If perhaps we should’ve gotten a new Prius after all. If our kids were going to think California and the equator were pretty much the same. If the constant sunshine was making us all batty.

But now. Now!

It started to rain in the wee hours of the night and to my great pleasure, I can still hear it coming down. A hard dripping sound on the plastic of the air conditioner outside the window. A soft, wet, swishy drip onto the leaves of the plants that are abundantly growing thanks to the never-ending sunshine. A splatter drip washing the terracotta tiles of our front porch. And then the warm, cozy drip on the roof that feels like cotton balls in my ears. I am enveloped in the womb of rain.

In my living room we have a small oriental rug. Sam and I purchased it at a bazaar years ago. It was one of our first big buys and it was exciting. The rug is from Afghanistan and we are definitely not the first owners. The color scheme is red and creme and two shades of blue and because the rug is positively ancient, the whole thing is faded six-ways to Sunday. Plus, I have small children and a dog so the poor rug has been put to the test. All of which of course, just makes it more beautiful.

Anyway, around the edges of the rug lies a complicated border. The border, I have been told, is lava. I first found out this startling news when I stepped on it and was told, “Mommy! You’re burning in lava!” Naturally, I jumped out of the border as fast as I could. Soon, talk of the lava had reached far and wide and everyone began carefully stepping over the dangerous terrain. What’s most alarming is that the lava flows around and around the border with no way to curtail its deadly path. The poor dog is forever getting burnt to a crisp and even I have been known to walk right through it unawares. How could I be so careless?

Little did Sam and I know when bought this rug that it would be such an important part of our family. We knew we’d probably have it forever. We didn’t know it would sprout its own lava train.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is my hero. Not only did he come up with the deliciously intense character of Sherlock Holmes, but also his odd and ever-so-intriguing brother, Mycroft. It has been alluded to that Mycroft is in fact smarter than Sherlock, a fact I find quite sexy. Mycroft is also described as lazy with his intelligence and uninterested (where Sherlock is not) in putting cart behind horse to follow through with a theory. Mycroft would rather be wrong and unbothered than right and disturbed.

Who has the bigger er, brain then? Sherlock or Mycroft? Sherlock deduces step by step until he solves the riddle. He’s both a sleuth and an adventurer – like a way better Indiana Jones. Mycroft on the other hand, is like a human computer; storing everything, seeing everything, manipulating everything. But he’s somewhat nonfunctional. Eh, it’s a toss up. Fact is though, who needs boy bands when you’ve got the Holmes brothers? Plus, they have those yummy, British accents.

Call me a nerd if you will, but I cannot get enough of these brainy detectives. <sigh> Be still my fluttering heart.

PostScript: My favorite modern adaptation of the books is the one with Benedict Cumberbatch (Sherlock) and Mark Gatiss (Mycroft) on the BBC – though I have never seen, Billy Wilder and Izzy Diamond’s The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, which is on my To Do list.

Valentine’s came and went this year with all the usual fanfare. The kids showed great enthusiasm for ye old day o’ love, which was sweet. Sam treated me royally, which was also sweet. And I didn’t get another ticket from Officer Friendly, which was super sweet. Oh…did I not tell you about that?

Earlier last week, my 1.5 year-old caught his sister’s cold. When Master Princeling catches a cold, sailors beware. I drove to school on Monday morning amidst high decibel whining and shouting. And by shouting, I mean the repeated screaming of a single word until I lose my mind. Examples include, “Down!” (he wants the window down), “Aqua!” (he’s dropped his water and wants me to climb back and get it for him while I’m driving), and “Mine” (usually refers to an object that he was holding, but has now lost to his sister). It’s exhausting.

Quickly I pulled up to school in the yellow zone and handed off my daughter to some hapless parent who was walking in at the same time. My darling older child gave me a hug and a kiss and marched in for all the world a woman of her own. Yes, I nodded to myself, that one’s going to be just fine. And then like a whirling dervish, I was off again. The backseat was noisy. Master Princeling wanted home. I drove like the wind. My one coherent thought in the insane chaos was simple: get baby to bed, get baby to bed. And then Officer Friendly joined the circus.

Of course, the flashing lights and strobe party quieted the Princeling right down. Please, Officer Friendly, I begged – a warning will suffice. The Princeling has me losing my mind and I need to get home to take my tonic. Two shots of wart hog makes the medicine go down, Guinness is brown, put that gun on the ground…

Officer Friendly was not swayed by the crazy in my eyes nor my melodious singing voice. I am now the proud owner of my very own traffic citation. Whoo Hoo!

There’s a lot of dying going around. Famous celebrities shooting up too much heroin. Fathers of our friends passing away on trips to Peru. Our actual friends having cardiac arrests in the gym. It’s senseless.

If I was a betting woman I’d say this dying this is contagious.

I’m afraid of death. The idea of this measly little life I have being OVER – it can’t be true. I haven’t gone to Africa. I never got published. I am not blissfully happy, goddamnit. And yet, around ever corner, I tiptoe carefully – sure that Mr. Reaper is waiting to snatch me from the shadows.

What will I regret when I’m dead? What will I be grateful for?

Last night I had a party to go to and I didn’t go. Instead, I watched Austenland in bed with a bowl of M&M’s. The light was off by 9. Will I regret that? Will I regret not being more social, more effervescent, more sparkly and superb? Probably. And what about the M&M’s? Or watching a movie alone while Sam went out without me? Or going to sleep at 9 instead of staying up and working on my opus? Maybe, probably, I don’t know.

The point is, I spend much of my waking days thinking about death. Thinking about what I should be doing so I don’t regret it when I’m dead. And thinking some more about life and how short “it” is. This transient state of consciousness trapped in a fragile little human shell. And then I keep thinking about all of us here, scrambling about for fame and fortune and power – all these quicksilver lives. These flashes in the pan. All of us one dark corner away from crashing into death.

And then another day goes by and it looks pretty much the same for me as the day before. It’s insane. I’m insane.

But one thing I do know – when it comes to death, we all look the same.